Together
by silvereyedbitch
Summary: Songfic providing an alternate ending. Takes place at the end of the third novel, just as Gerald and Damien have given up trying to talk their way past Andrys; and then Damien leaves Tarrant with that twit. Warnings: Bad writing. Songfic. M/M suggestion. D&G. Major character deaths.


**Summary**: While reading this, have the song "Snuff" by Slipknot playing in a loop. Or at least listen to it once through if you're not familiar with it so the lyrics' rhythm is more clear. So, this is another of my attempts at a songfic. I heard this song by Slipknot and thought it just fit them soooo perfectly during that ridiculous scene in the last novel wherein Damien leaves Gerald alone with Andrys, and Gerald is murdered by the little bastard. Anyway, so this fic takes place just as Damien and Gerald have finished trying to talk their way past Andrys, and Gerald has told Damien to leave the room. This is a more violent depiction perhaps of what could have happened afterward. It is not exactly a happy ending for anybody, folks.

**Disclaimer**: I don't own these characters from the Coldfire Trilogy. I just wish they had more written about them. I also do not own anything related to the song "Snuff" by Slipknot.

**Warnings**: Bad writing in general. M/M suggestion of a relationship. D&G angst. Major character deaths.

**Together**

**(I was recently informed that I cannot post song lyrics within fics on this site, so I have had to go back in and delete them from the fic itself. So sorry because I did not realize this, and deleting the lines from the song kind of makes the story more choppy and abrupt in rhythm than I'd like. Oh well. Just play the song to set the mood/tone for the fic. That should accomplish something at least.)**

Tarrant stood, utterly spent and defeated, his heart and soul breaking as he watched his counterpart leaving the room. The other glanced back once, uncertainty mirrored through his hazel eyes, but the adept's strong façade seemed to bring him out of his indecision, and he slipped beyond the door. Beyond Tarrant. And, oh, it hurt more than he'd thought it would, this separation. And he kept half-expecting a return through the same doorway. It would result in nothing good; but the steadfast loyalty of the ex-knight would seem more in keeping with a courageous, if fatal, return. To die, side by side, together. And yet…nothing. That doorway yawned a dark as empty as the adept's heart had become. How could this be happening? Could Damien not see how much he needed him to be the strong one now? Where was his brave companion, his friend?... His thoughts dipped deeper into regret. Things unsaid. _You never told him… _he thought to himself in despair, stopping just short of tears that couldn't fall. Not in front of this, this _boy, _as he thought of Andrys standing there before him.

Andrys shifted nervously, aware that something of import was happening within the mind of the horrid creature before him. Tarrant noticed him noticing as well. "Do not fear for yourself just yet, boy," he rasped in a whisper. "Your destruction has already been dictated to you. I will offer no resistance, you have my word…and you of all people understand what that means. I have never lied before. It's your spiritual death that will destroy you once you comply with Calesta's final wishes here." And with that statement seemingly taking the remaining strength from him, Gerald Tarrant, the Darkest Prince of Hell, hit his knees before his progeny. His pose was one of absolute hopelessness, yet acceptance of one's fate. His head bent forward to offer a better angle at the back of his neck. Andrys hesitated but a moment before taking up position beside the man who had destroyed his life and family. The Hunter paid him no mind. His own thoughts swirled in the direction of despair, but were slowly turning towards anger. _How could he leave me?_

Anger, thick and burning rose within his heart. _He thinks he can leave me here and make his own way? We are joined now, he and I. One cannot exist without the other,_ he thought as the dark fae began to gather round him in fractious waves and eddies. Andrys noticed none of this, of course, lacking an adept's eyes; he only noted a slightly more tense posture in the other man, presumably anticipating the killing blow. The purple-black fae leeched into every pore of the Hunter as he knelt. It enveloped him as a lover and caressed his growing hatred…and grew within his brilliant mind a series of alternate possibilities. Andrys dropped his heavy crossbow to the floor and hefted the flame enameled sword. The adept's eyes snapped open suddenly, and the fae within him burned through them, visible to even a non-adept's vision. Andrys raised the sword high, not wanting to wait to see what exactly this new development would turn into. Tarrant spoke as the sword went up, "You should know, Andrys," and it began the downward stroke, "That I can lie now."

The sword came down and passed through the neck of the most feared being on Erna in an instant of shattered violence. Blood sprayed forth from the force of the blow, the head tumbling away into the dark. A swell of relief built within Andrys' chest, though he still felt lingering goosebumps from the last words of the other man. The words had been deeply visceral, like an eternal promise. He was dead, though. No promises would be kept by him now, he assured himself. But as the body toppled over, and darkness poured forth from its gaping neck, the relief turned quickly to panic. What was this? The darkness rose up before him, coalescing first amorphously, then into a more phoenix-like figure. It roiled violently within itself, seeking completion. And it found it finally in the shape of a man. An utterly familiar man who had just died by Andrys' own hand…

Tarrant looked down at himself, seemingly pleased. The gaze he turned on Andrys when he completed his self-appraisal, though, was more intense than a living being could have managed. And then he smiled. Sort of. And Andrys stammered, "You're dead. You…you…" he pointed with the sword toward the body. Tarrant followed his gaze. "Hmmm? Oh, yes. That. I find that the Iezu mode of existence holds more interest for me than my former methods." His raptor gaze shifted back to his descendant, and a sneering smile returned to his countenance.

Andrys' mind whirled. He needed a way out. He couldn't contend with this! "You said you'd not interfere…no resistance…" he began, looking for a stalling effect. The Hunter merely stared at him, through him, before replying, "As I tried to tell you…I am no longer bound by the same rules, boy. Here, allow me to demonstrate this for you." And Tarrant bowed his head and pulled his arms inward to his chest, drawing the strands of floating dark fae inward to his core, which seemed to darken abruptly. And then more and more began to gather around and inside of him, until it stopped entering his form but merely surrounded him. He looked up slowly at Andrys then, who promptly felt a warm flooding of liquid run down his legs as the cold certainty of death closed over him…and then Tarrant let go. The cacophony could be felt by those 30 miles away. The keep and all its inhabitants were incinerated by the largest fae blast in recorded history. Damien was knocked to his ass where he had retreated to on the ridge. Consciousness fled him when he hit the ground, such was the force even at that distance.

Days later, Damien found himself in a darkened hotel room that had a window facing the direction of the Forest. He hadn't been able to shake the feeling that he was missing something. Or that someone was watching him. Night after night these past few days, he would bring his dinner to the room and partially consume it while gazing through the pane towards the ruin located in the center of the Forest. Lonely didn't even begin to describe what was dwelling within his heart, though he himself hadn't yet put a name to it. He'd never know what had finally made him leave that room and its fated occupants, but he knew he would feel the crushing guilt for all the years he had left. Once he had reached the ground level of the keep, he had actually tried to return to the lower laboratories after pondering over the way things had stood. But the church knights had come then and blocked his way. They allowed him to pass through them, but they no longer considered him a part of their order, and so he was informed that he should pass through and keep going. And so, with a sinking heart and a numbing dread, he did as told. There was nothing he could do against their hundreds in any event except get killed. But the feelings of guilt hounded him incessantly nonetheless.

Shadows formed outside the ex-knight's window; though being composed of dark fae, they were invisible to the warrior's eyes. Slowly they swirled together to take the vague shape of a slender man who in turn gazed inward while the other gazed outward. Damien sighed and turned away from the glass and moved toward his bed. Try as he might, the feeling of another's presence followed him even beyond the window's sight. And perhaps it was simply a lingering of he and Tarrant's bond? Knocked unconscious by the horrific explosion of the keep, he had not been able to sense when the link between them severed with the adept's death. And so maybe a little of it lingered on. _Figures that he could bother me even after death_, he mused smiling sadly to himself. Had he an adept's vision, he would have witnessed the darkening space beside his bed that began to fill with dark fae that was slipping in from under the windowsill. The man's form coalesced once again, this time taking on more distinct features, though Tarrant still chose to remain outside of Damien's natural vision.

Tarrant's anger knew no bounds as he gazed down at the now reclined form of Damien Kilcannon Vryce. The anger slid back and forth from outright hatred to a sadness beyond death, which only served to anger him further. He could feel the fae responding to his need, his want…his desire. It slid up and along Damien's form, causing the other man to shiver and pull the blankets somewhat higher. The purple wisps flitted around his face and caressed the rugged lines and planes thereon. Damien's eyes opened at this. It felt as though someone had just run a cold, smooth hand along his jawline. But his eyes found no purchase in the dim room, and so he closed them once again. His thoughts turned to the Hunter now, as they usually did before sleep took him, and the nightmares he found thereafter. He had never admitted out loud the loss he had experienced from the adept's death; he kept it close within his breast where it festered and wept bloody inside him. A certain four letter word often tried to gain purchase within his conscious mind in an attempt to name the feeling. But it was always denied access, and so it remained below the surface of his awareness.

And yet…Damien saw the man, felt him, as if he were in this very room with him. His eyes had held a sadness to them, he'd thought as he glanced back that last time before leaving the adept in the laboratory. Oh, why had he done that? His face screwed tight in a grimace of emotional grief. He held his breath for a second, but then the first tear came. After the first, he could never stem the tide to follow. Hot, salty torrents ran from his eyes for some few minutes as he debated internally the choice that had changed his life to a mockery. So tired of this. So tired. How would he ever get past it, though? And with these thoughts came the calm pain that settled as a dull ache where the love of another should have been. And as Tarrant's shadowy form stood in observant vigil, Damien whispered to himself, barely audible, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Gerald," before a mentally exhausted sleep overtook him.

The resolve within the Hunter's form nearly broke then, but he had spent so long in the darkness that existence without the light that was Damien was inconceivable. And so his hate built upon itself, doubled, tripled. It coiled inside him like a living entity sharing his mind. Hatred is fickle in ways that defy imagination. So close to love, it is often indistinguishable from it... The dark fae began to gather again in such a quantity that the normal visual spectrum began reflecting its shaping. And the Hunter leaned over the ex-priest's sprawled body, carrying forth his hatred on wings of blackest night. He halted just as he barely hovered over the other man's head. Fingers formed of Erna's darkest intentions reached forth to once again touch upon the face that had such an effect on his life. This feather soft caress was enough to awaken Damien's battle-honed instincts, and so his eyes flew open. He beheld the form of Gerald Tarrant leaning over him, his first moments of shock turning quickly to a kind of joy. But this too changed and died within his breast as he sensed the magnitude of dark fae within the Hunter before him. His eyes went wide with shock as Tarrant reached forth with both arms and then enveloped his body as an insubstantial mist that went in and through him.

Damien had but a second to attempt a scream, but then it was smothered under the malevolence of the being he had dared to cause to love another. He understood this with a sudden clarity that only those upon the cusp of death may experience. And he felt his body die as his soul rose up into the black ether that was now Gerald Tarrant. No barriers between them now. Pretenses fell away as the dust from whence they came. Mind to mind. Soul to soul. They met again, for the last first time. And eternity approached them, together.

E/N: Sorry guys. I was feeling melancholy and mildly violent, and I didn't want to use that yet in my other ongoing fic, so I chose to freelance on another one just to get out that angst. Hope it didn't run too far afoul. Songfics can be great for those who share the same taste in music, but for others it can make the story fall flat. This song and its music are integral to my fic. Without them, it stands alone, but not near as well as when incorporated with the added emotional disturbance that "Snuff" adds. Just reading the words without the music doesn't quite do it either. I listen to most anything, so I don't usually find this to be a problem when I read songfics, but I know others do. So I hope it doesn't annoy too many. Of course, since I only have 2 readers, I guess that's not many people who will be disappointed!


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